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Date:      Mon, 14 Jan 2002 00:54:33 -0600
From:      "Mike Meyer" <mwm-dated-1011423273.2bdf31@mired.org>
To:        David Syphers <dsyphers@uchicago.edu>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: can't mount / properly, fstab woes
Message-ID:  <15426.32937.509856.537287@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <115878273@toto.iv>

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David Syphers <dsyphers@uchicago.edu> types:
> On Saturday 12 January 2002 07:40 pm, Chris Fedde wrote:
> > On Sat, 12 Jan 2002 19:00:02 -0600  David Syphers wrote:
> I can't.  That's what I meant when I said that "it won't let me mount / 
> read-write."  I tried
> 
> # mount -u -w /
> # mount -u -w /dev/ad0s1a
> # mount -u -w -f /dev/ad0s1a
> 
> and none of them work.  They all give the error "fstab /etc/fstab :3: 
> inappropriate file type or format".  Why is it looking at fstab anyway, if 
> I've specified the device name?

Because you didn't specify the mount point? I'm not able to test this,
but I'd suggest:

1) shutdown -r
2) reboot to single user mode
3) mount -u -o ro / /dev/ad0s1a

> And how did I kill fstab by changing 'rw' to 'r' for / ?

You may have made a typo along the way, or it may have been fried by
later activity - didn't you describe a cras? Have you checked the file
to see what's in it?

> > Another approach is to ship out a new drive properly
> > installed so that the remote hands only have to switch drives and
> > free you from the drudgery of using their eyes and hands.
> An option only if I had some sort of budget - I mean, my web/mail server is a 
> 486  :)

Third option, for the truly despserate and slightly insane. Load
/dev/ad0s1a in a binary editor, and make the length of the inode
/etc/fstab points at 0.

> > Read only / disk is safe if you are careful and understand what you
> > are doing.  Remember that security is inversely proportional to
> > convenience.
> What did I do that was wrong, then?  All I changed was / to read-only.  This, 
> and this alone, caused my web server to stop functioning.

I'd say you weren't careful enough. Your web server probably needed
write access to something on /, which it can no longer get. Check the
web server log files when you have the chance to see what it
complained about.

	<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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